After demanding in various statements over the last few hours that the immigration law be reformed to “guarantee rejection at the border for entries by sea” and requesting the urgent appearance of Pedro Sánchez in Congress over the Ceuta crisis, Alberto Núñez Feijóo traveled this Saturday to the autonomous city, from where he harshly criticized the Prime Minister. The leader of the PP appeared alongside the Ceutan leader, the popular Juan Jesús Vivas, who dedicated all kinds of praise to him before his party leader’s speech. Feijóo stated that the entry of 50,000 people is a “premeditated occupation” of which La Moncloa was aware and blamed the Government for a “Spain invaded” by the massive regularization of irregular immigrants. He also said he has been in contact with various “European leaders” with whom he shared his “concern,” after several member states expressed their reservations about what happened in Ceuta.
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“I am here to convey, on behalf of Spain’s main party, all support to the people of Ceuta in a moment of extraordinary seriousness, a seriousness that persists today,” Feijóo said this Saturday, a day after more than 50,000 people crossed the border last Thursday. “We are all Ceuta at this moment,” added the PP leader before the media, alongside other Popular Party officials, such as the secretary general, Miguel Tellado, as well as Ceutan deputies and senators. The party has held the autonomous government for seven consecutive terms with Vivas at the helm. In the last local elections, it won 9 seats and was invested by a simple majority, followed by the PSOE with 7 seats, and Vox with 6.
Sánchez said this Friday, during his stay in Ceuta, that the massive entry caught the Government by surprise. But Feijóo denies this. “What happened here is not just another incident, it is a premeditated and unprecedented occupation of Spanish territory, nor is it something unforeseeable, this threat was known,” argued the PP leader. “In general, it is identified in the State’s strategic documents and specifically, everything seems to indicate that this was known since the beginning of this week, it is not explained by a fatality of fate, it is the result of failed political decisions. It is the Government that must assume responsibility for its own actions. The president said he was caught by surprise, I don’t believe it, I don’t think all the intelligence forces of a country have failed,” Feijóo claimed, who asserted that what happened is not explained only by the Supreme Court ruling, but also by the massive regularization approved by the Government, he said, because the message is sent that anyone “in Spain can be regularized through any border.”
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Feijóo promised that if he comes to power he will “shield the border perimeter of Ceuta and Melilla,” although without specifying how. He was also not very explicit about Rabat. “It is the Government that has the obligation to respond to Morocco’s attitude. Why didn’t it act if it knew what had happened days ago, as everything seems to indicate? My intention is to have a relationship of good neighborliness, cooperation, and mutual respect towards Morocco. However, there are things that should not be done and if they are done, they must have a strong response,” he stressed alongside Vivas, who welcomed “the returns,” but emphasized that “normality has not returned to Ceuta.”